This invention relates generally to buffer management systems, and more particularly to providing a shared storage buffer management scheme.
Typically, storage buffers are utilized within computing systems for the storage of data that is being delivered between software processes or data that has been retrieved from an input device for delivery to an output device. Generally, older I/O devices are configured to connect to a computing system via a 128 byte interface line, therefore cache and memory storage buffers were typically configured to support the 128 byte line size. However, newer I/O devices are configured to support 256 byte interface computing system connection lines—though the devices may also be configured to support 128 byte interface lines—thus necessitating the requirement that the cache and memory storage buffers within a computing system be configured to support a 256 byte line size.
Thus, it would be advantageous to be able to efficiently utilize storage buffers that are configured to support 128 byte and 256 byte I/O device interface lines.